Thanks to everyone who took part in the Jacket description competition. The winner is Merlyn Marten, whose wonderfully apt and funny version will relieve me of this head (provided someone does bid):
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to Lot #XXII, a rare double-headed sigillum, recently acquired by our confidential agent in Tuscany. It has been dated to the early reign of Domitian.
The subjects are undoubtedly the brothers Sinistro Terracaputius Neronicus and Dextro Terracaputius Neronicus, renowned in antiquity for their near mythological quest to find their eldest brother, a certain Centralius Terracaputious Neronicus Perdituscloacum. Reputedly an operative of the Imperial Palace, he was believed to have disappeared in the cloaca maxima while investigating the possible abduction of an officer of the Praetorian Guard. The figurine shows the two subjects looking for their missing brother up and down the claustrophobic confines of that great sewer. Note the deeply wrinkled externum nares, crafted in lovingly delicate detail.
This exquisite piece was found in the obscure villa of an ancient Etruscan family who only consented to the sale on condition of complete anonymity. According to family oral tradition it was only taken out for viewing on the last day of Saturnalia and the occasional dominica post meridiem. Do I have a bid?”
And I was so taken with Petrina Hartland’s ditty that she became an unscheduled runner-up:
There once was a girl in times gone
Whose new husband oft tagged along.
Because faced with untruths,
The newlywed sleuths
Agreed: “Two heads are better than one!”